


untitled robot mom and rat child bonding fic

by MakeMeBurn



Series: dumb hargreeves are dumb [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Autistic Number Five | The Boy, F/F, Gen, Good Parent Grace Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy has PTSD, allison is good and i love her, liberal use of parentheses, yes i know im doing it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:22:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23495254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MakeMeBurn/pseuds/MakeMeBurn
Summary: many slices of life
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Grace Hargreeves, The Hargreeves Family
Series: dumb hargreeves are dumb [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1690498
Comments: 22
Kudos: 213





	1. bro, mom is your new mom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> five is small and needs a legal guardian

“How many times do I have to tell you idiots? I’m-”

“Old as shit, yea Five I got it,” Allison said. She continued, “You're old and weird and have superpowers but you're still a kid and there's still a whole world out there that isn't just going to take your word on it. So why don't you let the people in here help you out?”  
The entire Hargreeves family is gathered in the living room, trusting Allison to do most of the talking (trust, that’s a thing they’re working on) and looking at Five cautiously. A thirteen-year-old fifty-eight-year-old tends to earn a lot of cautious stares. 

It has been six months since the apocalypse was sorted out, and they are still trying to be Normal and Functional. They are living under the same roof for the first time in a long time. That’s seven explosive and unpredictable super-powered fools in one house trying to sort out their differences and heal and do what’s best for each other.  
Every time they make a decision involving the family, every Hargreeves is there because they have never had a say in this house before. Also because half of these conversations end in a drink thrown in someone else’s face, a knife in the wall, tears, and slammed doors (and resigned but heartfelt apologies two hours later). Vanya made sure no one had any weapons before this particular conversation, Klaus had a glass of orange soda in his hand though (also Luther himself might count as a weapon?), so all bets were really off. 

Vanya looked at Five softly. As much as she trusted Allison to be able to do the heavy-lifting here as the only sibling who has experienced parenthood, it was Vanya who made a million disgusting sandwiches in case he came back, and has made a bunch of disgusting sandwiches since because he's a picky eater (and now he gets to be a picker eater and not eat like bugs and stuff so honestly she'll do anything not have to see him eat another beetle), so she picks up where Allison left off, “Five, calm it down. There's only so much superhero weirdness the government and child services can overlook. They found their limit with time travelling and an unstable teenie-bopper driving the streets of the city.” Vanya looked over at Diego for some assistance (they’ve clearly done this dance before). 

Diego, well-acquainted with pride and spite, says “It’s not you’re not capable of taking care of yourself-” Five bristles but Diego continues, “we know you can. You’ve been doing it for a really long time. But if you don’t have a legal guardian, you aren’t going to be allowed to stay here with us.” 

Six months ago, this wouldn’t have been a conversation. Luther would have picked someone and moved on without saying anything. Now, they know that parents and guardians are a touchy subject in this house, especially for people who have had no one for so long. 

Six months ago, Five’s eyes wouldn’t have widened and his breath wouldn’t have stuttered. He thought he was here just to get yelled at for being pulled over, he didn't realize there was a bigger issue at hand. “I-I didn’t know. I- . . . I want to stay . . .” he said, looking at the ground. Usually, Five’s words are sharp and careless, sharp objects he throws in every direction to get people to leave him alone. His eyes shifted around the room and he bit his lip. “I just want to stay, I’ll do whatever, I just don’t want to leave.” 

Klaus leaned forward in his seat (even though it looked like he had a helpful hand from their smartest and least corporeal brother) and reassured, “Hey little guy, we’re not gonna make you leave, it’s okay.”

Predictably, Five scowled (“I am not a ‘little guy’,” “it’s ironic shut up”), but he took a moment to steel himself and look Allison in the eyes, “So what do we have to do?” 

Grace entered the room and set down a plate of cookies on the table and sat on the couch to join in the conversation (the first time they did this, Diego yelled “It’s her house too!” even though absolutely no one was disagreeing with him and yelled at him to stop yelling). Allison smiled bravely, because the decision they had come to was probably the most healthy, but could also end with him jumping to his room and not talking to them for a week. “Well, we were thinking the best person would be Mom.” 

Five’s eyes widened and he turned to look at Grace, who smiled warmly back at him. Everyone else has always backed down from his range of various raging or calculating stares, but Grace has never been scared. Allison kept going, “Mom has been taking care of us our whole lives. She loves you and would never hurt you. We get it, you’re not a kid. It’s just a name on a paper-”

Five flung himself at Grace and she caught him in her arms. She sighed and closed her eyes. Each of the kids had come back around to Grace since leaving, trusting her and trying to understand what she went through as a pawn in Reginald's games. Five still looked wary of her until now. 

“Five?” Vanya asked. 

They heard a sniffle and a wet cough from where he had buried his face in Grace’s neck. “Yeah?” his small voice answered. 

“So this is okay?”

He took a deep breath. Five had felt alone even before he left. Reintegrating into the world with a mind that’s seen too much and a body that’s been given a second chance was slightly less lonely than the apocalypse, but really that’s a shit comparison. This young, old man had more secrets than he could count, but one of the original ones was from being six or seven and lying awake in bed imagining what it would be like if Reginald wasn’t around and if him and his brothers and sisters could live with Grace and be nice to each other and learn how to use their powers gently and bake cookies and go to the park. He wanted Grace to take them to the park so they could lie down in the grass and laugh until their stomachs hurt. He always wanted his family to be safe, and when his mom patched up his cuts and kissed his bruises as a child, he momentarily trusted that she wanted them to be safe. The little boy who loved his mom and wanted to be happy was reached suddenly by this conversation, and it seemed like this was the best gift he could have ever been given. 

He gets to grow up again. He gets to have a mom again. It’s not perfect, but really the Hargreeves have not had to be perfect since Reginald was gone, so why should they expect that now?

“Yea, this is okay,” he breathed out. Grace’s arms tightened around him.


	2. sometimes u need ur mom bro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> five has a nightmare and in a shocking moment of emotional clarity, he reaches out

Five knows it’s like Allison said, it’s just a name on paper. But his equations are on paper, and those are worth something right? Those are real and he can rely on them. 

This is what Five is repeating to himself as he walks down the hall from his room after he woke up screaming and clawing at the sheets on his bed. 

He was walking to Grace’s room. The family had built a new charging station in a bedroom filled with Grace’s favorite paintings and her embroidery materials. On the walk there, Five was trying to do what Diego was always annoyingly suggesting—breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. He was fine. This was fine. The house was still standing and his family was safe and he thinks he may have stepped on the cat’s tail on the way up there but there were no cats in the apocalypse so that was kind of promising. 

Even if everything really was okay, for some reason he wanted to see Grace. Some people might say that’s ridiculous and those people are definitely the voices in his head that say he should have outgrown running to his mom forty years and one terrible Twinkie ago. His feet took him over hardwood floors. He has to remind himself that he’s lived a long life, but not a particularly good one, so it’s okay for him to want comfort. God, that’s Vanya talking, isn’t it? How many voices are there?

He turns the knob to Grace’s door and walks in. He should have knocked, what an idiot, Grace never had privacy and now when she’s finally afforded some self-agency Five can’t even-

“Hello, dear,” Grace’s cheery voice called from the far side of the room. 

“Hi, mom,” Five said, shuffling his feet against the floor, feeling incredibly foolish and impossibly small. He looked up and saw her sitting at her charging station (she still didn’t want a bed, said lying down unsettled her), with a window open and her embroidery in her lap. He couldn’t quite make out what the picture was. 

“Now, what seems to be the matter?” she asked, a furrow forming between her brows. Huh, that’s new. A deviation from the usual sunshine and rainbow exterior of the gentle Grace Hargreeves. She cared. Of course she cared, she’s his mother. 

She looked at him expectantly, and Five knew that he must have been silent for an awkward amount of time (he still talks to himself too much, even when nobody else can hear). He cleared his throat. “Sorry, it’s just . . . I had a nightmare.”

“You have those often, don’t you?” Grace said, and patted the seat beside her. 

He didn’t waste any time in walking forward and sitting next to her. Not too close. Not touching. Five couldn’t deal with much touching yet. “Yes. I get them a lot. Sorry if you’re busy or you want to be alone, I just . . . don’t want to be alone right now.”

She looked at him softly. Not with pity, Five got more than enough of that from Allison and Klaus when he mentioned something a little too sad that he thought was truly very normal. Five searched Grace’s face and didn’t find pity. Instead, he found slightly wet eyes and the ghost of frown lines, if she was even capable of having something like those. He found something he didn’t have a name for. Like she actually just wanted to find a way to make him feel better. 

Five continued, “I have dreams where I’m back in the apocalypse. It’s worse though, because I know we fixed everything and now we’re nicer to each other so it’s like we did all that for nothing. And I’m alone again and I can’t find any of you but I know you’re out there, dead and it’s only a matter of time-” his breathing picked up he gripped his knees, knuckles turning white.

“But you’re not alone,” Grace stopped him. And it was the most obvious thing in the world but it stopped every voice in Five’s head. “I’m here with you, and Vanya is in her apartment, Allison is in California visiting Claire, Luther and Diego and Klaus are asleep in their rooms.” Five thinks it’s the most he’s ever heard her talk at one time. “You never have to be alone again if you don’t want to.” She took one of his hands lightly, giving him the option to let go and bolt if he wanted to. 

He kind of wanted to. 

But then he thought that this might be a good time (if there ever was) to air his freshest existential fears. 

“You say that . . . “ he started slowly. “You say that, but now I’m young and they’re old. They’re too old and even if it’s not the apocalypse, eventually, they’ll all die of natural causes. I’m going to have to watch them die and see their bodies all over again. And eventually, I’ll be alone again.” That’s not what his nightmares are about. That’s what he thinks about every time Diego gets bruised up in his back-alley batman shit, or when Klaus takes a tumble down the stairs. Five will be left behind. 

“No. You’re wrong.” Grace was shaking her head now. And Five’s eyes snapped up to hers because she was surprising him a lot that evening, but she just directly disagreed with something someone else said. “I’m not going to die of natural causes. I’ll be here forever. You have me.” She smiled at him, like this wasn’t morbid in its own way. 

“But then you’ll-”

She cut him off for the last time. “Don’t worry about that right now.” She set his hand back in his lap. “I’m glad you came to me.”

Strangely enough, he smiled. “Yea, me too. Can I stay here for a bit?”

“Yes, of course dear.” Grace said. She could tell he was getting sleepy in the way he was rubbing his eyes and slurring his words some. After all these years, he never really changed. 

He nodded slowly and let his head fall on her shoulder. “I’ll go back to my room soon,” he said quietly. Before his eyes closed, he glanced at her embroidery. It was a tulip that hadn’t quite opened. 

Grace sighed and looked up from her smallest son. Nightmares are common, not just for Five. All of her children have been through so much. Maybe she ought to have a bed in here, for when they don’t want to be alone.

Grace Hargreeves’ children will never have to be alone.


	3. night night, bro... its BEDDY-BYE BRO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace decides Five would benefit from routine, and decides to start small with getting him to bed at a reasonable time.   
> inspired in part by @soulykins old dogs, new tricks series where Klaus reads parenting books and ends up helping Five.

Grace looked down on her smallest son, asleep on the couch at 8 pm with legs and arms spread out at awkward angles. There were several things wrong with this picture.

She had spent the last couple months since Reginald had passed away exploring parts of the house that she was never allowed in. Grace knew that logically, she should hate it here. This is where she had been forced to stay prisoner, for lack of a better word, for nearly 30 years. She didn’t have a bedroom, she wasn’t allowed to step out of line, she had to look a certain way and say the right things. But Grace couldn’t bring herself to hate the mansion. This was where she raised her children. She read with Diego here. She taught Klaus and Allison how to apply eye shadow here. She patiently listened to Luther explain the different constellations here. 

So while Grace revelled in the fact that she could leave now, she also wanted to know what was in every inch of the house she could now confidently call her own. 

Grace had spent many afternoons in the library. She had been through all the maps of a world she had never seen, and Reginald’s journals and documents that she would never have been permitted to read. Eventually, she started reading parenting books. Grace had been built to be resilient to superpowered children’s tantrums, as well as a first aid administrator. Reginald had also programmed her with some child rearing information to help the kids, but he had very different ideas of what a child deserved than she did. So Grace mostly learned by trial and error, and by listening to her children. 

Grace knew that her and Five had essentially been given a second chance— her at being a mother, and him at being a child. She wanted to be prepared with all of the information she could gather. So, she devoured volumes on children’s needs, the emotional volatility of teenagers (which she was now bearing a second witness to), and studies about parenting styles. One fact repeatedly stood out among the seemingly never ending stream of information on how to make sure children are happy and healthy— routine. 

Young children wanted routine. It made them feel safe and gave them their earliest sense of control. When children got older, most seemed to not desire routine, so much as they needed it to be their best selves. They needed to eat and sleep at regular intervals. 

Five was no different from any of the example children in the parenting books. He desperately needed sleep that he was rarely getting, he needed scheduled meal times that involved something other than heavily processed snack foods (he found it hard to trust anything else, as perishables go bad fast in the apocalypse), and he needed some way of tracking the passing of time that did not revolve around whenever the most recent catastrophe was. 

So when Grace was standing over him taking a nap on the couch in the living area, she knew that this was a terrible time to be sleeping. Depending on how long he had been out, he might not get enough sleep tonight, and then he would be grumpy the next day and refuse to admit that it was because he’s tired, and then his sleeping schedule would be off for weeks. This was a recurring problem for him, mostly because he wouldn’t accept help from anyone. 

This was unfortunate for Five because Grace had been deciding a lot about what it meant to be a mother lately. Just recently (a couple minutes ago when she walked up to the couch) she decided that mothers got to help even when you didn’t want help. With this in mind, she crouched down next to Five and smoothed his bangs away from his face.

“Five, it’s time to wake up,” she said. 

Five scrunched his nose up and tried to roll away from her. 

“I know that you are very tired, but can you sit up for me?” Grace asked, wondering if phrasing it as a request for her own benefit would make him comply. 

Five sighed heavily and started to prop himself up on one elbow. He rubbed at his eyes while trying to blink the sleep out of them and readjust to the world around him. 

“Mom?” he asked drowsily. 

“Yes, dear. Have you eaten dinner?” She asked.

He looked confused at the question first, trying to process the situation. “No,” he shook his head, and sat all the way up. 

“Let’s go eat some dinner,” she decided for him, smoothing his hair back again. 

If he hadn't been freshly woken, he probably wouldn’t have leaned into the touch as much as he did, but Grace appreciated it nonetheless. “Okay,” he said easily, and rose from the couch, following her to the kitchen. 

Grace made a quick meal of grilled cheese and tomato soup (she was hoping that the combination would make him warm enough to go back to sleep after dinner) while Five sat at the table, still looking ahead blearily. She made two sandwiches— one for Five, and one for Diego that she wrapped up and placed in the fridge so he could eat something homemade before he went out early tomorrow. 

She sat Five’s sandwich and soup in front of him and wandered off to find her cross stitching to keep herself occupied so Five wouldn’t feel watched while he ate. Getting Five to eat was something precarious and risky, and she couldn’t be careful enough when undertaking the task. 

By the time she came back to the kitchen table, he had eaten half of his sandwich and wrapped up the other half to be put in the fridge (Diego would probably eat that half too). He put his bowl and plate in the sink and was now standing in front of the sink, staring at the dishes. 

“Dear?” Grace asked, trying to get his attention. 

“I have to wash my dishes,” he explained, making no move. 

She came up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders. “I think it’ll be okay if we leave them for tomorrow.” 

“Are you sure?” Five asked slowly. He looked up at her with big eyes. 

In the few times Grace had dealt with a malleable sleepy Five (as opposed to an angry and wrathful sleepy Five), she had noticed he was more soft-spoken and that his grasp on reality was tenuous at best. He seemed much smaller this way. 

“Yes. Are you still tired?” she asked, looking him in the eyes and carefully pronouncing each word to ensure that Five understood. 

He nodded, looking rather surprised with himself. 

Grace started to lead him upstairs towards his room. He needed a little prodding and nudging to make it all the way up the stairs, stopping frequently to stare into space and then jerk back into awareness suddenly. When they finally made it, Five flopped down on his bed immediately. 

“No, can you please sit back up, Five?” Grace asked of him before it was too late. 

Groggily, he sat up again at her request. 

“You need to get ready for bed,” she explained. 

“I am ready. I’m tired, I’m ready,” he countered, clearly confused. 

Grace chuckled softly, “I can see that dear, but you need to brush your teeth and wash your face, and don’t you think you would feel better if you slept in pajamas?”

Five considered this for a moment. “Yeah, okay.” He got up, grabbed some pajamas and made his way to the restroom. 

Grace stayed in his room, wanting to make sure that she would be here when he came back. She was hoping she could get him back into bed instead of letting him be tempted to scribble down equations late into the night. 

She looked at his bookshelves. They were mostly books on space and physics that had been taken from the Hargreeves library. She also saw Vanya’s book on the shelf, along with some of Ben’s favorites. It seemed that Five was trying to collect books that were his own, not his father’s.

Grace understood what it meant to finally have personal property. 

Five came back into the room in soft pants that probably belonged to Allison and a sweatshirt of Klaus’ that was far too big on him.

“Let’s get you back into bed,” she said (very pointedly avoiding the phrase “bedtime”, which would have Five ranting and raving within seconds upon hearing it). 

He simply nodded and walked over to his bed, getting under the thick blankets slowly.

Grace looked at him before she left for the night, “Goodnight, Five.”

“Goodnight, mom,” he mumbled into his pillow. 

Grace grinned to herself, turned off his bedroom lamp, and closed the door behind her (leaving a small gap, knowing Five didn’t like the door completely shut). 

Tonight has been a success, Grace thought to herself. We’ll see about tomorrow.


	4. sweater switch, bro?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five is hypersensitive and Grace loves him so so much.

Five has been acting strange all day. To be fair, Five is strange and so the line is a little different for him, Grace knew this. Five has been flinching at loud noises and beating his balled up hand into his thigh. It takes a couple of tries for his siblings to get his attention when they want it.

Grace wants to help Five but she's not sure what's wrong or if he wants help. Sometimes he doesn't want help and he yells. She knows he doesn't mean to but she doesn't like yelling anyways.

They're working on it.

Grace was reading in the living room when she heard small footsteps coming up behind her.

"Mom?" Five said, voice swollen with something she didn't quite recognize.

Grace turned around to look at him. His eyes were big and wet. He was tugging at his sweater and breathing quickly. Five has never come to her for comfort in such a public space in the home. Anyone could see him, so she knew it must be bad.

"Yes?" She prompted him.

"I- I- I-" he stuttered and looked frustrated. "I don't know. I don't know. It's too loud and my sweater is weird and sometimes it's like this and I don't know what to do."

He wasn't making much sense like this but Grace figured that it wasn't exactly what mattered. He was trying to tell her something and she just had to listen.

"Why don't you sit down?" She asked.

"I don't want to," he said.

"Then I'll stand too," she said and stood up from the couch and faced him. She figured she should take this in steps. Things are best broken down by steps. "What is bothering you the most, Five?"

He was shaking now, but he looked at her and then looked everywhere else in the room except her. "My sweater is scratching me," he said quietly, and continued "that's stupid."

"It's not stupid if it makes you upset." She wonders how many times she's said that to him. "You can take off the sweater?"

"I'll be cold. I don't want to be cold," Five explains.

She thought for a second, and looked down at her own sweater. "My sweater is soft, do you want to try mine?" She tried.

He looked at her like he had no idea she would literally give him the clothes off her back to make him happy. She didn't wait for an answer, she took her sweater off and then he followed suit and they were both in their undershirts. She handed him the sweater and he handed her his. He held her sweater in his hands for a moment, like he was weighing it and feeling it. When it seemed like he decided it was satisfactory, he pulled it over his head and smoothed the soft pink wool down.

Grace smiled and put his sweater over her head. It was green and a chunky knit. It was a little small, but still warm.

Five smiled shyly, "Thanks mom."

"Of course. Is there anything else wrong?" She asked, but it seemed like the worst of whatever he was going through had subsided with a new sweater.

He chewed his lip thoughtfully for a moment. "Can we just sit and be quiet?"

"I would be so happy," she said and sat back down on the couch. Five sat next to her softly and put his hands over his ears. He took a couple of deep breaths and Grace picked her book back up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this one's short but I just think its neat :)

**Author's Note:**

> covid sucks and quarantining sucks and all I write lately is angry poetry that doesn't rhyme and lab reports, so I am trying my hand at writing about a family that's healing instead.  
> is this worth continuing? i dont really write fiction so this is an experiment . . .


End file.
